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Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Surrealism

"So strong is the belief in life, in what is most fragile in life – real life, I mean – that in the end this belief is lost." - Andre Breton, Manifesto of Surrealism

I believed there is a reality beyond physics. I don't know why? All this while, it has been a somewhat gut feeling or instinct. Perhaps, due to my existing consciousness that keep prompting me to not give in to the idea that there is no reality beyond. Even there are naturalists (those who believed everything can be explain through natural process) proposing their ideas to suffocate metaphysics, but still the stubborness of my consciousness insist on its own origin. I really do not know why. It is so surreal. I felt it.

Though Sigmund Freud said that it is some Oedipus-made-up instinct from our unconscious mind, but i don't agree with him. If that is so, why should i have this instinctive feeling in the first place, or how did the first person came to experience Oedipus even when there wasn't any reference for him to recognise which inclination should be encourage and which should not. Does instinct by itself able to teach us the "ought" and "ought not"?

What are feelings? Effects resulted from hormones and impulses in my vein (body)? Perhaps, some of them are, but what about the feeling of liking or even loving? My consciousness keeps being bombarded by feelings. All i know about feelings is that they are effects which serve as an end, which meant to be feel them as a result. Feelings, in their abstract nature, can't neither be good nor bad. We do say，"I feel bad..", but that 'bad' is just the feelings that we dislike, just as when we say,"i feel great!", there is nothing great about that feeling anymore than there is anything great with our favourite musics, except that it is sweet to our ears.

Further, why are we conscious of feelings and why can't we be unconscious of them?Feelings like love and hatred are more than effects from our hormone maneuver. It should be more than that, it has to be! I am being unnaturalistic. I just cannot allow the reality of naturalism to be swallow in. It could be the stubborn reaction from my consciousness again; as stubborn as a physicist that rejects metaphysics.

Is an existentialist who romanticise feelings romantic? I dont know but i guess, setting up feelings as pillars in life would be devastating. Feelings are the main motivation for suicides, from my observation.

What do you guys and girls think? What do you think, Joyce? Is life a result of natural process or there is some unexplanable origin that we can hardly discover?

And what about our destiny? Is there anything at all after death? (Sigmund Freud said,"NO"; C.S Lewis said,"YES"). If there is, where are we in that realm? If there is an ultimate realm that provoke my curiousity and keep my consciousness unrest, then this reality must surpasses realism; it is Surreal.

Though i am defining surrealism differently from Andre Breton, but there is one significant similiarity that is in the nature of both of our understandings. Both of us believed in a foundational awareness within human fathomable reality. And this foundational awareness is an effect of our mind.

From here, Breton pursuded his idea of surrealim being a "Pure psychic automatism, by which one proposes to express, either verbally, or in writing, or by any other manner, the real functioning of thought. Dictation of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason, outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupation."

As for me, i head towards a rather different philosophical nature of surrealism; "the belief in the superior reality of certain forms. It tends to ruin once and for all all other psychic mechanisms and to substitute itself for them in solving all the principal problems of life."

And my question is: How do i ask this question?

Rene Descartes gave a fairly good suggestion: I think, therefore I am.

It seems like there isn't any explanation for the existence of my own consciousness. Perhaps, the closest that i could gather from nature is that my consciousness is sustained by another consciousness which is prior to mine. If my temporal consciousness is sustained by another consciousness, then that other consciousness have to be beyond temporal. This transcendental consciousness is Surreal.

"He is before all things, and in him all things hold together."Paul of Tarsus, Letter to the Colossians

4 comments:

Freud to me, was a man who was confused and was not only trying to understand mentality, but i tihnk he was trying to understand his own. Sad to say, i don't think he ever got to the part of finidng out the truth, or more so accepting the truth.

Our realm now is just a pitstop before we hit the brightly lit shores of our Father ^_^.

"I rejoiced with those who said to me, Let us go to the house of the LORD"....

what do you mean by saying that life is a natural process as opposed to one that has an unexplanable origin that we cannot discover. Being a Christian , i definitely choose the later. But honestly speaking , I choose that not because i think everything in this world , including my experience , my logical reasoning points in that direction. I just feel that if i don't believe in something good , that there is something in this world that is beyond me , something that triumphs over our sinful nature, i might just go mad. It would be a world without hope. Life would really be meaningless then.

Zhenhao:"Is life a result of natural process or there is some unexplanable origin that we can hardly discover?"

I asked that question to provoke readers to think seriously whether is life a result of Darwinian evolution? Or there is a cause to life which we can't find out by our mere observation and experience to nature?

And my stand is the latter, same as yours, but i stand there not because only of my faith but also truth. There is no point for me to hold to the latter view if only my religion said so, but it turns out that is not the truth.

Basically i am anti Darwinian evolution theory. I dont have problem with micro-evolution, but not macro-evolution as proposed by Darwinist. According to them, LIVING BEINGS came from NON-LIVING THINGS. In other words, life came from lifeless. Illustration: if man came from monkey, then monkey came from stone. Therefore, man came from stone.

Of cos i do not reject Darwinian evolution based only on above proposition, but also from science and reason. For more info, check out :